The Legacy of a Punishment
by KarotsaMused
Summary: Crowley alone has seen the world from the viewpoint of the angel, of the demon, and of the common man. Some days, it eats at him.


A/N: "Good Omens" belongs to Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett; I am using the characters without permission and for no profit. 

If y'all are counting, yes, I'm back early. This little update will be about it for a while, though. All that work I put off is glaring angrily at me. My ski trip was awesome, even if I only got to ski for one day (Can we say BLIZZARD?) and the various CDs I got are definitely riddled with a few inspirational lines. We'll see what happens later.

Anyway, this little ficlet came out after I spent far too long musing on QueenStrata's "Paradise" trilogy. While completely fulfilling my fluff quota for the rest of the week, it left me wondering. What would have come to pass if Aziraphale hadn't been there? Written entirely as a viewpoint into Crowley's head, although I forewent the style of the book for my own selfish purposes. Man, I'm lazy.

Warning: Language, themes, slight inclinations of C/A (So slight that if you're looking for them to even _touch_ one another you're going to be disappointed), me being...well...me. Heh, this doesn't break with my form at _all_.

Notes to those who reviewed "Experiments", "Gameboard", and "Ears" at the end.

* * *

The one hundred and eleven years between 666 and 777 Anno Domini were...well, not Hell. Crowley knows Hell. Hell is not blue skies and green grass and tan sands and the stink of farting livestock and the further foulness of unwashed humanity and drunken debauchery. Hell is torture but not constant warfare, not tenuous peacetime nor strength of belief. Hell's motives are not often as complex as those of man, and neither are they so base.

They were 111 years of manic highs and suicidal lows. He's sure his captors took it as some huge cosmic joke.

Crowley, little slithering Crowley, sentenced to every facet of humanity except the exceptionally short lifespan. Make the snake breathe _all the time_. Make him bleed at every barb, fall ill at every disease, break at every touch. Let him be tempted and unable to maintain control. Let him feel coldness and desolation and the cruelty of those he is corrupting. Harden him back up. Force any feelings of protectiveness or affection from him. Let him feel the heat of hands that hold him captive, and then pause to ask if he is willing.

Crowley is unsure as to who laughed hardest at the end of it all.

For the first ten years he was sick, violently and near-fatally. But he couldn't age, couldn't die, not if his punishment was to be carried out in full. He was banished to the land of the living, given his human guise but without the safeguard of his demonic power beyond the scope of immortality at the basest level. Without an immune system born of years adapting to his environment, Crowley was an open target to any number of side effects of bad hygiene, ill-prepared food, lack of sleep, and a liver with limits. His lithe body grew taught from hunger, his joints swelled from malnutrition, his skin festered with sores. And every day, he would receive a check-up from a lower-level demon that would make a sarcastic, triumphant comment and kick at him. Weaklings that used to skitter away at his approaching footsteps came to jeer at him with lolling tongues and rolling eyes. Crowley does not remember what he did. Nobody reminded him, having too much of a good time taunting his current condition. Conjuring some change in the elements that worsened his circumstances. Eating in front of him.

Crowley was not chained down in the literal sense, and decided to do something about it. A check in a pane of stained glass assured him of human eyes and a rounded tongue. He stumbled into a small church constructed of large stones. And, as a human, he could gaze upon the holy regalia without flinching. Yet, though his eyes did not respond, a fist clenched about his human heart and Crowley toppled to the floor.

They forgot about him. Hell's minions would no sooner venture into a church than an angel would patronize an assassin, and so they waited for the time period to end. Hopefully Crowley would remain either so debilitated or attached to the church that upon the return of his demonic power the holiness of his surroundings would cause quite the backlash. No check-ups, no reports, no pointing and laughing after the first decade. There were more important things to attend to. Formulating plagues, harnessing the power of faith misused, scrambling to keep up with human technology.

Crowley healed. He cared little that he was in a house of God as a demon, so long as he was fed and his bandages were changed. He supposed he was sinning even further in his ironic deceit. And so, staring into the image of Christ on a crucifix whenever he opened his eyes, counting the days since his arrival and wondering when he might get out, counting the years until the promised return of his power, Crowley healed. Humans take longer, but this did not inspire in Crowley any sense of patience. Not at all.

Anticipation is a powerful thing, and Crowley had much to learn once his health was clasped in his hands.

Crowley supposes it was their fault they decided his looks should ever evolve to suit the current standard of beauty. It aids in tempting, if nothing else. The demons that torture and maim should be suitably frightening, but Crowley is a lovely, earthbound fallen angel. If he asks something with his winning smile, it will be done. This is the persuasive power of disarming beauty. He's a gorgeous motherfucker; he's told himself this whenever he catches a glimpse of himself. Had he a mother in the three-tally-time, he wonders if he might have tried.

Without disease, one does not focus so completely on struggling to live. Instinct takes over and breathing feels _good_. Eating, sleeping, taking a routine piss. Pain is duller in the soft gray of human existence. After all, demons _invented_ the punishment mechanism. Their bodies are fully equipped to appreciate their inventions, but endorphins step in on the mortal side of things. Demonic torture is best suited to naked souls. Humans hadn't fully got the hang of it yet. Since then, they've made great strides.

All of that takes a backseat to the pleasure humans can find. Nothing stands in the way of sensual overload except for shame, and Crowley stolidly refused to let that emotion into his repertoire. Not even angels get it so good, because inside of human love hides sin. Every time, even in the cases of the truest true love, there is sin somewhere. Angels can't handle that. And what angels can't handle, angels won't attempt. Demons, conversely, never feel love. Falling takes from them the Love and the memory of the Love. Love gets in the way of tempting, of torturing, of corrupting.

But humans can touch it, and are dirty enough to really appreciate it. To throw back their heads and rejoice in it. Crowley, unobserved and mundane, was exposed to what really made his job so easy sometimes. The first few times, he surprised himself. Or he hurt someone. Or he hurt himself. But as time went on, with the remaining ninety-some years left to him, Crowley learned. He grew just careful enough, just wise enough, just clever enough to get by. He moved fast before people could learn his face, before anybody could grow close enough to even ask his name. Crowley had in him a human heart, and knew the unwanted emotions would surface if ever they had a chance. Crowley never gave them the chance, running hard against any shame. He fell in love every day, and hated himself for it. He forced himself to move on. He learned to wake before the sun, to drink only enough to lose the worst of his inhibitions.

To his credit, Crowley looked out for himself. He made no friends, kept no long-term lovers, held no job, but he managed. On some days he wonders if perhaps, had his punishment been given a mere millennium later, he wouldn't have made it so well. When the appointed year finally came, Crowley was not missed. And Crowley did not miss his almost-humanity. The emptiness was the same no matter his form.

Humans have this funny desire to share. They share experiences, wisdom, misery, joy. Crowley wonders if he would have picked it up without his short stint in living sin. For all his desire to connect, for all his loneliness and hate of nonattachment, he never shared his period of punishment with the only other being that might perhaps understand. Their correspondences were, at that time, so few and far between that his absence hadn't been noticed. Often times, Crowley's throat has swelled with the words, ached to bring the subject up and get some sort of reaction.

The angel doesn't understand. Aziraphale, the innocuous and the pious. He wouldn't be able to comprehend the mix of feeling and instinct that turns the human brain to a chaotic muddle in which religion, temptation, contact, and consumption are ever only periodic players. Aziraphale has never been human, and has not studied them beyond what is necessary to secure his favorite wines and a rare religious text or two. He fears Falling, losing that pervading, fulfilling, and empty Love he has clutched like a security blanket for thousands of years. Crowley has done it, and knows that his journey southward had not even a tenth of the impact Falling would have on Aziraphale.

Crowley knows he has a functioning body. Both he and Aziraphale, in order to maintain human guises, must feel real on the off chance that they come in contact with mortals. And Crowley knows that if Hell deemed it fit to promote self-exploration, there is little chance Heaven followed suit. But there is a chance, however slim. More than that, Crowley and Aziraphale have been stationed on Earth for long enough that some human practices come as force of habit. Muscle memory, and the reality of this plane of existence asserting itself on a receptive body. Any body.

Crowley has speculated more than once on asking for a change of gender. Not entirely out of a sense of boredom. He knows it would not matter much to him, nor would it matter to Aziraphale. _Then_, he thinks, _if it matters so little, I might as well stay the way I am._ It is better than dodging the questions that would inevitably arise as his request is processed. Aziraphale might give him a funny look, but would settle again into the old routine. Crowley is Crowley, even if Anthony became Antonia. And that is the frustrating part.

Aziraphale treats breathing as a chore, but indulges in fine food and fine wine. He participates in pleasures of the flesh, given to gluttony and sloth on days when he supplies himself with a stack of books and an endless supply of French chocolates. Whenever the question of gender arises, Crowley thinks of these moments and has to grin. Aziraphale would make a lovely woman, in some of the more pleasant mannerisms. Especially his weakness for chocolate.

For all his probing, the only weaknesses the angel has pertain to his gut and his intellect. Crowley must be exceptionally careful, because the oblivious nature of his friend can only be stretched so far. But Crowley wants someone else to know what he knows, from the point of view of an outsider. The people he sees every day don't appreciate what they have because they have never functioned without their given reflexes. Crowley has seen the world from the perspective of an angel, a demon, and a man. It is his unique worldview, and it eats at his insides. He wants to ask questions, to talk, to show, to feel. To recapture the few rapturous moments he had as a healthy, beautiful, ugly, lowly human in a dingy world under dirty hands. To be so unclean and so uncaring, losing all vanity and all sense of self-preservation. To become attached, irrevocably and insurmountably, so that he fell in love every day.

Crowley knows that Aziraphale can love. But Aziraphale has never been in the thick of it. He knows the love of a Father, the love as a child, the love of a Protector, but Aziraphale has never been touched by a peer. There is no sideways movement in the hierarchy, no way to reach out to those above or below. Crowley remembers that, and only cares about it after he has known something different.

It hadn't been a bad setup. Even when Crowley was an angel, he hadn't felt any ill will toward his Creator. But within that hierarchy Crowley had been bored enough to see if the grass was greener on the other side. Without the Love, Crowley was met with only a temporary sense of loss. He found he could function quite well without it, felt no desperate need to be filled again with the holy light and the internal warmth. There was no love for demons, but this did not bother Crowley. He was, as ever, bored, but at least a bit better suited to his surroundings. He filled his time with deviousness, devising small contrivances to affect many on a long-term basis, being far more forward thinking than his peers. As his results began pouring in, he was promoted. And Crowley was just fine with it all.

And then _it_ happened. Crowley has no idea what he did; it was probably something he saw as inconsequential but really cheesed off his superiors. And though he laughed at the end of it, having spent his time in a far more...interesting fashion than had been his usual habit, he is plagued with dreams. Hell's punishment lives on in the aching isolation of delayed omnipresence.

Crowley wondered once if God felt like that all the time. He'd gotten quite the earful for thinking _that_ one. He had become a joke for a while, the demon comparing himself to the Heavenly Father. Word leaked out to some angels and would have caused a roasting scandal had they not thought themselves more powerful than Crowley himself and dismissed it as temptation talk. It was just another pitiful attempt by Hell to knock them off of their pedestals. Crowley spat at a storm grate when news cycled back to him. Demons didn't get it. Angels didn't get it. God probably wouldn't get it either. God had never been powerless as he had been.

In the year 778, Crowley asked himself if he had done right in surviving. Had he killed himself, circumventing the immortality clause by mutilating himself beyond repair, would he have gone to Heaven? He would have been destroying a thing of Hell, thus absolving himself.

Crowley bit his own tongue, knowing that survival instinct and uncertainty would have overpowered any sense of curiosity. There was always the chance that his form was tied utterly and completely to Hell, and he would face further reprimands for destroying his given body.

In the year 785, he caught up with Aziraphale. The angel asked him how he had been, and Crowley had lied through his teeth. The decision had been made quickly, and the lie came easily. In hot, dark moments, Crowley regrets it. More often than not, though, he feels he would make the decision again, given the choice. What good would it do him? What good would it do Aziraphale?

It would not bring the three words to Crowley's lips, nor would it give rise to Aziraphale responding with his own requirement. Aziraphale loves; Crowley wants. No amount of storytelling will change the order, and Crowley knows well that it would only bring confusion and discomfort. Crowley is sick of hating himself in the morning.

And so Crowley plays platonic, tempting merely in jest and maintaining the careful balance he has kept for so many years. He will not force himself upon Aziraphale, nor give Aziraphale any reason to think he might have the inclination. And Crowley will breathe deep after waking up every morning, smiling when Aziraphale muses aloud on his laziness in insisting upon falling asleep every night. Old habits die hard.

* * *

**"Experiments in Anatomy":**

Transparent Mask: Hee, I do too. I've drawn it far too often not to love that image.

Jiasa Stormcloud: Thank you! That's actually my favorite footnote. It came as a kind of epiphany, and I grinned to myself while writing it. Glad you liked the kiss as well. Geh, I fear I got too poetic on that one.

Poison Candy Sprinkles: Why thank you! Uh...and your pseudonym is awesome, if a bit frightening. I'll not eat cupcakes for a while...

Chickens: That, my dear, is another fiction altogether. I stared off into space for a good ten minutes after reading your review. Woo.

My: Well, eh, this one was kind of a stand-alone. I'm sure your imagination can supply the further details.

Ashirum: Thanks! Footnotes are kinda hard to orchestrate :P I'm sure they're not easy to read either with all the scrolling, but I'm glad you liked mine.

**"The Gameboard and the Hourglass":**

Tenshimagic: Thanks, especially for the constructive criticism. As I reread it, I realize how wordy I was. Eh, that's me, though. I probably did it in this fiction, too. Meh. Anyway, that fiction actually prettymuch sums up my ideas on God and how I'd like to think He handles things.

Stef: Heh, well, I kinda went further into it with "Ears", because after I wrote Gameboard I felt there was something missing. Sorry the symbolism was confusing. XP I'm kinda inclusive when it comes to what makes sense, in that normally it only makes sense to -me-.

**"Ears":**

OptiMoose: Hee, thanks. If ever there is a novel one should reread...I've gone through my copy of "Good Omens" at least six times.

Ariandir: Thanks for the kudos and the muffins! Heh, if it wasn't OOC that's all I can ask for :)

The Kitty-Kitty: Well I can suppose that "Ears" might make you feel a bit depressed. _-sweatdrop-_ But at least I'm glad I gave you the squishy fluff happies I'd hoped would come across.


End file.
